Where Birds Never Chirp
by EZDai
Summary: Medusa is visited by a unique half-blood. (2nd Attempt at uploading.)


"Birds don't chirp when they're made of stone."

That was the the quote that some nice, caring soul had thought to graffiti her front wall. Years ago, that wall had been untouched by paint, and chiseled from the finest marble this side of Olympus, or so said the young man who had helped put up the wall. She often thought of him, that young, cocky man, so sure that he was invincible. That same man had come back, and now found himself made of the same kind of stone.

That couldn't be why the woman standing in her just her dress was bitter though. For one, that man had been in her garden for some four hundred years, now, and his statue was starting to chip, here and there, where the birds started to peck before she could do what she would always do from now on; Turn them to stone. A suitor long ago had pecked at her heart the way those birds sought to do to the man made stone, but she had joined the men just as quickly.

Medusa had not always been a Gorgon, nor had she always been curse. Even at the age of 13, however, she had seen a man casually pick up a woman's bag and ran up to him, screaming that stealing wasn't the least bit right! The ring on his finger and the same on the woman's did nothing to dissuade the headstrong youngster from trying to stop people from being bad. In short; She had always, always been something of an optimistic cynic. The world smelled no better when viewed through rose-tinted glasses, one of her sister's had said, drunk on her own self-worth after a particularly handsome man picked up a shoe that had slid off of her foot, ignoring Medusa's nearly sprained ankle in her favor.

Was that sister among the statues? She had not been given the curse of Gorgon, and might have wandered into Medusa's lair some day, hundreds of years ago. Then, more than now, Medusa had ignored the faces of the statues that she had collected; What did they matter but as targets for the pigeon's to aim for? Would that be better than dead and buried? The answer lay in way that the woman once called Medusa stroked the statue that had been gathered most recently.

A few days earlier, a woman had wandered in.

Medusa, snakes nipping at her ears to annoy her more than to get her attention, had been tending to some of her squash plants. They were fat, and lumpy, and with nothing less than a massive sneer, Medusa thought of the Goddess who had put her in this position for more than two millennia. The one snake on her head who had stopped tormenting her bit her ear, not to annoy her but to alert her that she was likely to gain a new piece in nothing flat. It wasn't a big shop, and Medusa the Gorgon was hard to miss; Some still did, though.

As the young ancient picked her way out from the rows of plants, a voice caught her off guard.

"Excuse me? I'd heard your name was Meadow, and I just wanted to say that I think your hair is lovely! Would you maybe like to come out and get a cup of coff-" That was as far as she had gotten, but Medusa, more human than snake, had no problem deciphering the meaning. Her newest statue had just tried to ask her out on a date. Athena could rot in Hades for all Medusa had cared at that moment, whatever the woman's name had been, the statue's position clearly showed that she was interested. She'd also been shy and nervous in the moments before she got stoned.

The Gorgon blinked, tearing her hand away from the statue's cheek. "Foolish, that's all I am." Trying to distract herself, Medusa focused on what needed doing that day, whatever day it was; Everything. The squash were fine, the pumpkins were blooming meaning it must have been near what humans called Halloween. The daisy and rose, and the dandelions would stay where they were; And had been for the past 2000 years or so. The prettiest flowers never needed to be tended to.

She tended them well into the night, for what that was worth. Exactly squat when she couldn't sell her harvest, no more than she could eat it without throwing it up a few hours later. Medusa hardly even slowed down when the moon shone anyhow; She could see and she couldn't sleep. All the better reasons why she didn't have much dirt on her hands the following night, because that day had been spent on statues.

A few days after accidentally stroking the cheek of woman, a suitor, turned stone, Athena attempted to mock her further, yet.

This time, Medusa was sitting at the service counter that pretended to make her garden a store. It was covered by a thick layer of dust, and she wasn't doing much more than playing at being a store clerk and reading a book that Athena had dickishly dropped in; How to Attract Women Instead of Men. Where the goddess had come upon that information… It wasn't too much to keep her from noticing when the young woman walked in.

Her hair was a stark, almost gingery, orange-red. She didn't wear much more than a dress almost as simple as Medusa's, but she had flip-flops that the Gorgon simply hadn't bothered with in a long while. Despite having just walked in through a door, her eyes were staring directly at the floor, and she seemed too focused to be surprised.

"May I help you, half-blood?" Medusa did her best to startle her guest anyway; It worked to a degree. The Gorgon got a yelp, but those eyes remained fixated on the floor.

"I… Didn't realize you would be right here."

"I am bound by Zeus not to leave my garden, and by Athena to turn people to stone when they see me. Why are you here?"

"I… Wanted to talk."

"... Talk?"

"Yes."

"Do I look as stupid as you think I am?"

"I don't know."

That got the Gorgon to chuckle; It was the part where she was supposed to crone about, 'Well, if you'd look up you could figure it out.' But she had grown tired of being an active villain.

"Does the floor make a suitable, visual replacement?"

"I mean, as opposed to getting turned to stone a lot of thing are better." The redhead quipped, and Medusa swore she could hear Athena, somewhere, yelling, 'ZING, BITCH!' Instead, the young, human woman continued, "But, I wouldn't really know."

"And why's that?" How much longer would the Gorgon pay along, that's what the Redhead had to be thinking.

"Because… I have a theory."

"Oh, do tell. Are you going to ask Zeus to rain acid upon me? In an attempt to cure me of my stoney curse?"

"I…" Was she about to tell Medusa that she deserved that curse? Daughter of Athena could be so… Theoretical. "The theory pertains to me, and my Sight." Medusa could hear the capital S on the human word.

"And what's that theory?"

Without warning, stupidly, the redhead's gaze snapped upwards, and the most interesting conversation that Medusa had had in seconds was over. Rather it should have been. Every snake on her head tried to lunge off of her head, but that usual flash that kept Medusa from falling prey to the magic that made her victis stone never came. If a Child of Athena was present, they didn't make their knowledge known or helpful.

That redhead stood there, staring right at the Gorgon who nobody saw and lived to tell the tale, and then just stood there for more.

"What the everloving Hades is wrong with you?" Medusa hissed, although her own eyes answered that question for her. The dress the half-blood was wearing wasn't stone, nor was the skin that peaked out from her cleavage and upwards. Her hair remained a crimson glow of lovely locks, and then Medusa saw those eyes; A pale, almost glass like sheet covered them.

"I, Chaselin Annes, Daughter of Athena, am much more blind than a bat. And I want to talk because I believe that you're lonely." 

The Gorgon's voice trembled with uncertainty, as she cursed under her breath, "Fuck."


End file.
